The Left's Mr. Right?

"If you'd asked me six months ago would I be in the position I am today, I would have said, 'Don't be ridiculous'," Dean told NEWSWEEK last week. "We've caught fire and, frankly, not with anything we've done that's so brilliant. I wish we were so smart to have figured out the Internet thing, but the fact is, the Internet community found us."

Enter the skeptics, center stage. Dean is another Bill Bradley in 2000, Paul Tsongas in 1992 or John Anderson in 1980, they say, an NPR flavor of the month with appeal mostly to educated secular sophisticates who simply aren't numerous enough to win the White House, whatever the ratings of "The West Wing" (whose actors almost all support him). He's a classic "Doonesbury" candidate, the critique goes, which is fitting, perhaps, considering that the strip's creator, Garry Trudeau, was a close childhood friend of Dean's when they were in day camp together more than 40 years ago. The greatest fear among certain Democrats is that if Dean does win the nomination, his liberal supporters will put their Birkenstocks on the gas pedal and drive the party right over the cliff, a la George McGovern in 1972.

The dilemma for Democrats tempted by Dean is whether to go with their hearts or their heads. Their hearts soar at Dean's bare-knuckle attacks on Bush and patented Rx on social issues. Their heads tell them that the only times Democrats have won in four decades was when they nominated moderate Southerners--Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton--with a natural connection to black and working-class Democrats and independents. Under this analysis, liberals--especially if they didn't serve in Vietnam--are in danger of being depicted as "soft on terrorism" post-September 11, just as an --earlier generation was derided as "soft on communism" during the cold war.

"A Dean nomination could again [mean] Democrats lose 49 out of 50 states," says Clinton's pollster, Mark Penn, who is working for Sen. Joe Lieberman's campaign. (The 2000 vice presidential candidate is currently leading in national surveys, based mostly on name recognition.) "Dean's antiwar image will linger and will be used against him," predicts Jim Jordan, Kerry's campaign manager. "This 'security mom' thing is real. Women are even more hawk-ish than men. Until you can convince the voters that you, too, can keep the country safe, you don't get heard on the other stuff." Can Dean beat Bush? "Absolutely impossible," says Jordan.

That's a bit premature and categorical for an election that is 15 months away. In fact, it's still too early for even the savviest political operatives to plausibly war-game the results of the Democratic caucuses and primaries, which don't begin for more than five months, an eternity in politics. Any of the six major candidates--Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, Edwards and Sen. Bob Graham--still has some chance to win.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Biden and retired Gen. Wesley Clark--urged on by still-uncommitted fellow Arkansan and Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton--are now thought to be leaning toward late-entry candidacies. (Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun and the Rev. Al Sharpton will introduce differing perspectives to the campaign but aren't plausible nominees.) With all Democrats operating in Clinton's large shadow, the trail is not well marked yet. The harmful gaffes, memorable one-liners and policy pirouettes of a presidential contest--any of which can be more important than money--remain well down the road. One arrogant remark by Dean in a debate could send all his hard work into the recycling bin.